EE Installation Difficulty

[blake]

I like the look of EE and want to try it out. I'm not quite getting the brief instructions on how to set it up and have a number of questions.

Everything sets up right, but I can't figure the paths out.

I can bring up the editor and the default gallery page.

I made a directory named blake to put all my photos in.
There are already directories in the main /gallery/ directory named "thumb" and "microthumb". Are these where I put my thumbs? Or do I recreate these in the directory where I put my photos, "blake"?

There was mention of a Photoshop action to make these thumbs. I can't seem to find it.

tks for the help.

blk

[Pekka]

I made a directory named blake to put all my photos in.
There are already directories in the main /gallery/ directory named "thumb" and "microthumb". Are these where I put my thumbs? Or do I recreate these in the directory where I put my photos, "blake"?

You can freely use ANY directories for thumbs and microthumbs, but they have to
a) be on your server
b) be accessible with relative server path like "../../thumbs" or "/docs/thumbs/micro/"

Size paths are paths for different variations of images: you can have one path for original photos, one for b/w, on for small, one for medium. Each size path can be anywhere on the Internet.

Size paths have:

Menu text: this is the text visitors see on the photo page dropdown menu for this path

Path it leads to: this is the folder EE takes you when you select this path

Variable: this is what you see on the browser address bar for each size

Variable "default" has a special meaning:

"default" variable is used when other paths fail, for example when you select size 'big' in one photo and in the next photo that size is not available. That is the reason you must have one there. When you offer only one size it's variable cannot be changed to as the menu is hidden, so variable default is always chosen.

So, if you have only one path, it MUST have variable name 'default'. Otherwise you see no photo on photo page.

The system knows the filename of each photo, and what paths are show on photo page for each photo is decided by you. The filename of the photo is simply added to the end of the path by EE, this gives a clean URL to the desired photo.

This path system makes whole thing very flexible - you can use a simple path system for all exhibitions (big/medium/small) if you don't want to dig too deeply into EE, or a system with extremely complex variations where each photo can have any number of different versions, like composition variations, sharpening variations, black/white variations... you could e.g. make EE display a photo contest using size paths: have one photo page display all photos of each category (the dropdown menu would then give participant photos). This works as long as all filenames are identical on different folders (each participant has it's own path).

I will make microthumb and thumb path editors just like size path editor is now, that will make it easier to see an outline of path data, what's going on. I also intend to write a report tool, which tells you and "inventory" of you exhibitions, sizes, paths, all.